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AW Journeys: Shangri-La (or Not): Seeing with New Eyes
Shangri-La (or Not):Seeing with New Eyes
By Tim Hoiland
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As a missionary kid starved for American culture, to me there were few words more enchanting, more promising than “furlough.”
In Guatemala, where my parents were doing linguistic work in a remote indigenous area, we didn’t own a TV. Nor did we have access to the internet. Most of what I knew about American culture had come from all-too-infrequent furloughs. The rest would come from classmates who would return to the international school in Guatemala City after their own summers up north. From them, I’d pick up on the latest in American fashion, sports, and pop culture.
For some families, furlough means returning to some familiar place and staying put for a while. For our family of five, it meant loading up a car and making a big squiggly loop around the United States. My mom and dad grew up in the San Fernando Valley and the Pacific Northwest, respectively, but they met in Dallas, Texas.So, when people would ask, we never knew where to say we were from.
Usually we flew to Dallas, where we’d buy a used station wagon or minivan. But in the summer of 1995, when I was twelve, my parents decided we’d drive up through Mexico. Our Toyota Hilux had served us well on Guatemala’s mountain roads with those endless switchbacks and occasional mudslides. (There’s a reason the Hilux is the pickup of choice for missionaries and terrorists alike.) But for a summer-long road trip with my brother, sister, and me crammed in the back, there were some serious drawbacks. Like navyblue vinyl seats that our legs would stick to. Oh yeah, and no air conditioning.
Our journey through Mexico took a few days. But the unrelenting heat—and the stomach bug I picked up from a questionable club sandwich—made it feel a lot longer than that. By the time we crossed into McAllen, Texas, I was starting to feel better—in more ways than one.
The first thing I noticed that evening was the freeway. It was so wide and smooth and well-lit! We stopped at a supermarket, where I marveled at all the options—an entire aisle for cereal! Fifty brands of toilet paper! Then we made our way to a motel with a swimming pool, air-conditioning, and, wonder of wonders, ESPN.
To me, this was Shangri-La.
When I turned on the TV, I navigated to the sports channel I’d heard so much about. I’ll never forget what I first saw: Ken Griffey, Jr.—a superstar I knew only from baseball cards—crashing repeatedly into the outfield wall. In replay after replay, the Mariners centerfielder fell to the ground in pain, but somehow held onto the baseball.
I would have been content to stay at the motel forever. But furlough might as well be a verb, because the next morning we were back on the road. That summer, the O.J. Simpson trial was underway. And the country was reeling from the Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by someone who shared my name. I was vaguely aware of both events. But for me, the people and places we were encountering took center stage.
On Memorial Day, we went swimming in a lake in the Texas hill country. At Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, we learned the difference between stalagmites and stalactites. We stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon and passed through the vast Mojave Desert. In Southern California, my parents spoke at the church where I’d been baptized.
A month in, we pulled into my grandparents’ house in Snoqualmie, Washington, east of Seattle. Here we’d have a chance to relax for a few weeks. There was a family reunion. We played ping pong and picked blackberries. On an island in the Puget Sound we collected sand dollars. Grandpa taught me (in vain, I’m afraid) to play chess. And each evening, I’d watch the Mariners game on TV with Grandma. I loved these daily rhythms.
But before we could say Snoqualmie, the time had come to get back on the road. Winding our way first east, then south, we explored lakes and waterfalls, saw mountains and meadows. We drove through a herd of buffalo at Yellowstone, experienced snow flurries at Beartooth Pass, ate donuts at the summit of Pikes Peak.
Finally, sometime in August, we closed the loop. We were back in McAllen. It was the same border town, the same motel, the same grocery store. But I couldn’t believe my eyes. The water in the motel pool was scuzzy. The oncegleaming supermarket seemed cramped and dingy. And the town as a whole? Nothing to write home about. What had happened to this place?
Of course, the town hadn’t changed. I had.
In Marcel Proust’s words, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” At the start of the summer, McAllen had been the first stop in a dream world, a land of endless possibilities. It was the gateway to a big country I sort of belonged to but didn’t truly know.
But after a full, whirlwind summer of open roads, national parks, baseball games, and family reunions, I was seeing McAllen with new eyes. This border town had become the gateway to somewhere else. It symbolized a return to life as usual. And I wasn’t quite ready for that.
I never begrudged my parents for our life. I saw their calling as a noble, worthwhile one. I still do. But I was acutely aware of Guatemala’s nuisances and deprivations. It would be several years before I’d come to see my childhood with gratitude and wonder, mixed with heartbreak for Guatemala’s wounds—and the ability to name my own.
That furlough in the summer of 1995 was a gift. But as I would later come to see, so was our life in the Land of Eternal Spring (as Guatemala is called). Turns out, America doesn’t have a monopoly on natural and cultural treasures.
I would always be able to say I had lived in an adobe house on a mountain ridge at 9,000 feet. Or that I’d climbed an active volcano, explored ancient Mayan ruins, and vacationed at a lake so beautiful Aldous Huxley considered it “too much of a good thing.” Or that living among subsistence farmers had taught me more about tenacity, resilience, and hope than one could ever learn in a book.
And then there’s the enduring gift of friendship. In recent years, my wife and I have returned to Guatemala to support community development work there. During those visits, we have stayed with old family friends in the western highlands where I once lived. And back in the capital, we share meals with some childhood friends from the international school. Most of my classmates left Guatemala after graduating, but many have now moved back, choosing to raise their own families there.
As different as our lives may seem, the bonds between third culture kids are real. It’s good to belong to a community of people whose hearts and minds will always be hyphenated—between cultures, between places, between worlds. Because if we’re honest, we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Tim Hoiland is communications director at 1MISSION, a community development organization working in Mexico and Central America. He grew up in Guatemala and now lives in Tempe, Arizona.
